ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I examine sex positivity as emerging in Black feminist knowledge and cultural production. Sex positivity, the political act of defining your sexuality on your own terms, is yet another thing I learned from other Black women. The term sex positivity is widely used and debated and has become something of a liberal feminist buzzword divorced from its radical political orientations. This essay demonstrates that Black women indeed show us the term’s power and political necessity. For Black women, sex positivity challenges centuries of overlapping white supremacist, ableist, sexist, and cissexist discourses and power arrangements that have violently controlled Black women’s sexuality and bodies. In this essay, I provide an overview of sex positivity, and introduce different feminist conceptualizations of the term. Second, I examine sex positivity as a Black feminist gift and situate sex positivity in Black feminist theorizing and knowledge production. Third, I explore the Black ratchet imagination and sex positivity in Black feminist cultural production.
